Dom TristramJekyll2024-03-12T15:03:30+00:00http://dominictristram.com/http://dominictristram.com/http://dominictristram.com/2023/09/21/politicising-climate2023-09-21T00:00:00+01:002023-09-21T00:00:00+01:00http://dominictristram.com<p>We need to talk about what the Tories are doing when it comes to the environment and how dangerous it is.</p>
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<p>Generated transcript:</p>
<p>We need to talk about what the Tories are doing when it comes to the environment and how dangerous it is. Now of course the Tories have never really cared about the climate or the environment if it means spending money. I mean, that’s true, even though they have done some environmental things, and there are Tories who are greener than other Tories, and credit where it’s due, uh, people like Zach Goldsmith and even Boris Johnson have said some sensible things about climate and environment.</p>
<p>I’ll give them that. I mean, I don’t agree with them in many ways, but they have said at least one or two sensible things, like maybe we should care about the climate, and maybe we should do something about it, and maybe we should get people out of their cars a bit, and maybe we should invest in public transport, and bikes in London, all these things.</p>
<p>There are, and there have been, Tories in the past who have made some very small gestures towards , climate and responsibility of the environment. But now what’s happening? Now the Tories, having realised they’re going to lose the election because they’ve been appalling for the last 15 years or so, have decided that the environment is going to be something they weaponize, something they’re going to make, uh, aligned to left and right.</p>
<p>Like in America, where if you’re on the left, you care about the climate, and if you’re on the right, you hate the climate. This is what the Americans have managed to do, so everything becomes divisive, and anyone on either side who suggests anything to do with helping the environment gets labelled as some sort of lefty.</p>
<p>In this country, we’ve largely avoided that up until relatively recently. There was consensus that we needed to do something about net zero, and people argued about the speed we needed to do it, but it was generally accepted. For example, Boris Johnson, um, who I do not give much credit to, but he was fairly fundamental to expanding the, um, emissions zone in London, which now, um, Sadiq Khan’s getting all the grief about from Tory activists.</p>
<p>That was Boris Johnson that pushed it. So let’s not forget. that the Tories have not traditionally been entirely bad when it comes to climate. But now they’ve decided they’re going to make it a divisive issue. So we get this ridiculous sort of stuff coming out of our Prime Minister saying we’re going to stop these things that actually aren’t happening.</p>
<p>Because don’t get me wrong, these things here aren’t happening. at the moment. This tweet makes absolutely no sense at all. It’s entirely designed to anger people on the right, make them think that there is some sort of cabal of people who care about the climate who are somehow left wing and are making you do these things.</p>
<p>These things are not true, okay? We are stopping. No, they’re not stopping anything because these things… aren’t happening. Now, there is small taxes on flights, of course, but that’s, they’re not going to stop those. They’re talking about some sort of mythical thing, some mythical tax that’s going to discourage you from flying, not what’s actually happening now, because they’re not talking about getting rid of that.</p>
<p>So taxes on eating meat, you know, these are purely designed to be divisive. Now, of course, Let’s not forget the Tories are now talking about pushing back on our obligations to stop the sale of new diesel and petrol cars and gas boilers. And they’re pitching this as some sort of, oh, it’s unfair on the poor people who can’t afford new electric cars.</p>
<p>Right, let’s be very clear. The poor, or I should say people with less money, are not thinking about buying brand new cars, full stop. They’re not. I mean, it’s ridiculous. It’s a made up thing that’s meant to make us feel, oh, the Tories are on the side of the working man. The Tories have never, and will never, be on the side of the working man or people who aren’t rich.</p>
<p>They are not. The sale of new cars only affects… the wealthier people. You might want a cheaper new car, I don’t blame you, but if you are buying a new car, you’re not poor, okay? So let’s get away from this divisive politics. Let’s talk about the things that need to be talked about when it comes to the climate.</p>
<p>We do need to accelerate where we are, route to net zero. 2050 is too late, 2030s. Too late. Everything’s too late. Today is the time to do it and the, you know, the next best day is tomorrow. So we need to accelerate these things and we can do it in a way that doesn’t disadvantage the people with less money.</p>
<p>Let’s remember there’s more millionaires in this country than there’s ever been. They pay very little tax. Let’s get them to subsidize. Expensive insulation upgrades is on this list. What do you think that means? That means people living in rent and accommodation are going to have to pay more for energy.</p>
<p>They don’t care about people without much money who are cold. They’re caring there about landlords. You know, it’s the messaging is all, , we’re helping people with less money. No, you only care about the rich. You’ve only ever cared about the rich. Don’t try and weaponize the climate to try and get people who aren’t rich on your side.</p>
<p><a href="http://dominictristram.com/2023/09/21/politicising-climate.html">Politicising Climate - Part of the 'Populist Playbook'</a> was originally published by at <a href="http://dominictristram.com">Dom Tristram</a> on September 21, 2023.</p>http://dominictristram.com/2023/09/11/dangerous-dogs2023-09-11T00:00:00+01:002023-09-11T00:00:00+01:00http://dominictristram.com<p>As the media concentrates on yet another attack by a dog breed intended to be agressive, what can be done about the problem to tackle it permanently?</p>
<!--<blockquote class="tiktok-embed" cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@dominictristram/video/7237410401359645979" data-video-id="7237410401359645979" style="max-width: 605px;min-width: 325px;" > <section> <a target="_blank" title="@dominictristram" href="https://www.tiktok.com/@dominictristram?refer=embed">@dominictristram</a> <p>Record Migration Figures</p> <a target="_blank" title="♬ original sound - Dom Tristram" href="https://www.tiktok.com/music/original-sound-Dom-Tristram-7237410319471364890?refer=embed">♬ original sound - Dom Tristram</a> </section> </blockquote> <script async src="https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js"></script>-->
<blockquote class="tiktok-embed" cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@dominictristram/video/7277546289246522657" data-video-id="7277546289246522657" style="max-width: 605px;min-width: 325px;"> <section> <a target="_blank" title="@dominictristram" href="https://www.tiktok.com/@dominictristram?refer=embed">@dominictristram</a> Should we ban <a title="bullyxl" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/bullyxl?refer=embed">#bullyxl</a> <a title="dogs?" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/dogs%3F?refer=embed">#dogs?</a> Yes, almost certainly. But we need to go further than that. <a title="dangerousdogs" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/dangerousdogs?refer=embed">#dangerousdogs</a> <a target="_blank" title="♬ original sound - Dom Tristram" href="https://www.tiktok.com/music/original-sound-7277546324474825505?refer=embed">♬ original sound - Dom Tristram</a> </section> </blockquote>
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<p>Generated transcript:</p>
<p>Let’s talk about dangerous dogs. Now, there’s a very simple solution to a lot of the problem we have with dogs, in my mind: all dogs, literally every dog, should be licensed. Also if you have any kind of conviction for cruelty or irrresponsiblity keeping a dog, then you are banned from keeping any more dogs for life.</p>
<p>That’s it - end of. Minimum. After all, a pet is a responsibility, not a right. If you prove yourself cruel or irresponsible then why should you be allowed any more dogs? So that’s just off the bat - no dogs if you’re found cruel or irresponsible. Dog licensing was previously only used as a slight revenue generator in the past when we had dog licenses, but now with today’s technology we have a much better scope for using it to ensure that dogs are well treated and that owners are responsible.</p>
<p>Dogs are already microchipped, or should be. A licensing scheme can tie that microchip to the license. A vet could demand to see your license every time you take your dog in. If you buy or sell any dog, you should demand to see licenses. People might say “Oh, well, there’ll be a black market, people won’t bother with them.”</p>
<p>And sure enough, when we had dog licenses it is estimated that about half the people with dogs didn’t have one. But technology has moved on and that’s not a good argument for not doing it again.</p>
<p>In my mind, in a world where people are regularly bitten by dogs there’s no excuse for not trying to do something about it. You can’t just shrug, and you can’t say equally, “Oh, but my freedom! Why shouldn’t I be allowed an enormous fighting dog?” Because why should you have one?</p>
<p>We should just use statistics. Look at all breeds, and if more than a certain percentage of dog attacks are by this particular breed, put restrictions on it. Start with just making sure that they are muzzled (ie it’s a legal requirement to muzzle them in public). If that doesn’t work then look at stronger measures. But there’s no point just sort of shrugging our shoulders and going “what can we do?”</p>
<p>At the moment Suella Breverman’s looking at banning ‘bully XL’ dogs. We’ll see where that goes. But let’s say she does. There’ll be another dog. There’ll be another large fighting dog that the sort of people who buy these things go for, so the only solution is to look over all dog breeds and come up with some sort of automatic ‘if X many attacks happen, then this is considered a dangerous dog’ calculation. Muzzle them by default and then ban them if it goes beyond a sudden higher percentage than that.</p>
<p>I’ve got a dog. I love dogs. I love pets, but I’m not the sort of person who wants to buy a dog to look tough, a dog that looks dangerous. I think there is a certain psychology behind those people that we, as a country, shouldn’t really endorse or support. So sure, look dangerous if you want, but make sure that dog’s wearing a muzzle. And be ready to accept severe penalties if you willingly circumvent these attempts to keep your dog safe.</p>
<p><a href="http://dominictristram.com/2023/09/11/dangerous-dogs.html">Dangerous Dogs</a> was originally published by at <a href="http://dominictristram.com">Dom Tristram</a> on September 11, 2023.</p>http://dominictristram.com/2023/05/26/record-migration-figures2023-05-26T00:00:00+01:002023-05-26T00:00:00+01:00http://dominictristram.com<p>A number of peaceful protestors were arrested at the Coronation. Why should we be concerned?</p>
<blockquote class="tiktok-embed" cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@dominictristram/video/7237410401359645979" data-video-id="7237410401359645979" style="max-width: 605px;min-width: 325px;"> <section> <a target="_blank" title="@dominictristram" href="https://www.tiktok.com/@dominictristram?refer=embed">@dominictristram</a> <p>Record Migration Figures</p> <a target="_blank" title="♬ original sound - Dom Tristram" href="https://www.tiktok.com/music/original-sound-Dom-Tristram-7237410319471364890?refer=embed">♬ original sound - Dom Tristram</a> </section> </blockquote>
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<p>Generated transcript:</p>
<p>I just wanted to say a quick thing on, the UK net migration figures, which are a record breaking high up 20%, 606,000 people, I think, are the latest figures per year. I think it’s worth just dwelling on the fact that many of the people who voted for Brexit did so because they didn’t like the idea of migration and how they must be feeling now because we’ve gone from lower numbers of people coming in and let’s face it, not liking migration is often, not always, but often due to racism, you know?</p>
<p>People who don’t come from here coming in. And so these brexiters, now these, people who voted sometimes with a racist motive against staying in EU because they didn’t like migration, now have far more immigrants. But, those immigrants are now much less likely to be other white Europeans and much more likely to be people from other countries of different races. Now, how do you think they feel about that?</p>
<p>I think if there is a silver lining from Brexit, and I don’t think there is particularly, but if there was one, it might be just imagining how many extremely annoyed racists there are at the moment.</p>
<p><a href="http://dominictristram.com/2023/05/26/record-migration-figures.html">Record Migration Figures</a> was originally published by at <a href="http://dominictristram.com">Dom Tristram</a> on May 26, 2023.</p>http://dominictristram.com/2023/05/09/coronation-protest-arrests2023-05-09T00:00:00+01:002023-05-09T00:00:00+01:00http://dominictristram.com<p>A number of peaceful protestors were arrested at the Coronation. Why should we be concerned?</p>
<blockquote class="tiktok-embed" cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@dominictristram/video/7231195072316935451" data-video-id="7231195072316935451" style="max-width: 605px;min-width: 325px;"> <section> <a target="_blank" title="@dominictristram" href="https://www.tiktok.com/@dominictristram?refer=embed">@dominictristram</a> <p>A number of peaceful #protestors were arrested at the #Coronation. Why should we be concerned?</p> <a target="_blank" title="♬ original sound - Dom Tristram" href="https://www.tiktok.com/music/original-sound-Dom-Tristram-7231195110690753307?refer=embed">♬ original sound - Dom Tristram</a> </section> </blockquote>
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<p>Generated transcript:</p>
<p>So the Coronation happened, and one thing you may have seen in the news is that a, small number of pro Republican and I do mean Republican in the very literal sense of not wanting a monarchy. Some pro-republican protestors were arrested and moved on and they’ve all been released without charge.</p>
<p>But I think what this really shines a light on is just how insidious the anti protest legislation is that , this government’s bought in. Now, I’m fundamentally opposed to criminalizing any peaceful protest, but the excuse they gave, which did win some people over, was that there are too many disruptive people sitting in roads and locking themselves onto things and being difficult to remove, and that was a massive inconvenience. And that’s what they pitched as , the reason why they wanted to bring this legislation in. But of course, what’s happened, as always happens when you give the police these powers, is that they’ve used these to, , effectively stop people protesting the coronation.</p>
<p>Now they had placards, there was no evidence they wanted anything more disruptive than holding placards, . They’d actually asked the police for permission to have the protest and were given the permission and yet they were arrested and carted away. And people say, oh yeah, but it’s fine because they were released without charge. And you know what? They were but their right to protest was effectively removed because they were being held during that time and being arrested isn’t fun. But, apart from anything else, t he government don’t even really need to criminalize the actual act of protest by charging people. If they can just arrest them and then release ‘em without charge - gets around some of the awkwardness of having to go to court to prove anything, doesn’t it? But because police can arrest people for these, I’m not going to say crimes, can arrest people for having disruptive protests, they do. Now, this is obviously being used to silence an inconvenient protest that doesn’t actually break any of the laws that the Tories have brought in, but somewhat more worryingly, even if you don’t agree with the republicans, it was used to arrest community volunteers handing out rape alarms.</p>
<p>Now these were community volunteers working with the local borough, handing out rape alarms, which, the police claimed, could have been used to startle the horses. Or something. Now they weren’t, obviously, and there’s no evidence that they were being planned to be used that way. So it doesn’t help those people who got arrested, people who are doing good work.</p>
<p>It’s just the slippery slope into authoritarianism. Everyone always denies it. “These Just Stop oil protests are disruptive. It’s only those we want to stop”. As soon as you give the police the powers to stop a protest, they will. They’ll stop pretty much any protest. And we see this repeatedly whenever more power is granted.</p>
<p>It’s always used to the fullest extent, even if that’s not actually even what the government wanted. But of course, the government did want this. It’s like the laws stopping single person protests in Parliament Square, which were literally brought in just to stop one man having his anti-Brexit protest. And of course, now the police have any power they like to stop any single person protests. If you are standing outside Parliament demanding action for, let’s say somebody who’s wrongfully deported and then was killed abroad or something awful, you wouldn’t be allowed to do that anymore because the government had some vindictive reason to bring that legislation in because it was inconvenient for them to be reminded how inept Brexit was.</p>
<p>Now we should all care because even if you don’t agree with a particular protest against this government, whether it’s because you agree with the government or because you disagree with the protest, if you then agree with legislation to ban protests one day, that power will inevitably be used against you in protest you agree with, because there will be a different government that’s doing things you don’t like.</p>
<p>Or it’ll be a protest against something that you want to protest. This was seen to some extent by the Countryside Alliance march. Now, I don’t agree with the pro-hunting position of the Countryside Alliance at all, but the people who were on that march getting bashed on the head by policemen were exactly the sort of people who would’ve supported those actions against most protestors. Largely. I’m generalizing, but a lot of those people on that march would’ve been exactly the sort of people who would typically approve of such measures, giving the police those powers.</p>
<p>So this is what happens. You support something because you disagree with the protestors. In that case, lo and behold, it’s used against you. So always stand up for the civil liberties we have in this country traditionally, which are being eroded by this government.</p>
<p>Whether it’s the right to asylum, the right to protest, these things are fundamental and you have to stand up for them, even for people you disagree with.</p>
<p><a href="http://dominictristram.com/2023/05/09/coronation-protest-arrests.html">Coronation Protest Arrests</a> was originally published by at <a href="http://dominictristram.com">Dom Tristram</a> on May 09, 2023.</p>http://dominictristram.com/2023/05/05/the-results-are-in2023-05-05T00:00:00+01:002023-05-05T00:00:00+01:00http://dominictristram.com<p>The results are in, and the Greens and Tories have the same number of councillors in Bath and NE Somerset. That’s better news for one of us!</p>
<blockquote class="tiktok-embed" cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@dominictristram/video/7229669808101510426" data-video-id="7229669808101510426" style="max-width: 605px;min-width: 325px;"> <section> <a target="_blank" title="@dominictristram" href="https://www.tiktok.com/@dominictristram?refer=embed">@dominictristram</a> <p>Local #Election Results in #Bath and NE #Somerset</p> <a target="_blank" title="♬ original sound - Dom Tristram" href="https://www.tiktok.com/music/original-sound-Dom-Tristram-7229669835344120602?refer=embed">♬ original sound - Dom Tristram</a> </section> </blockquote>
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<p>Generated transcript:</p>
<p>So it’s the day after the local elections. I’m feeling pretty tired because I was at the count last night and, um, haven’t slept. But yeah, we’ve got three councillors in Bath and Northeast Sunset, which is brilliant. Thank you, everyone who voted. Three councillors is tripling what we had before. It gives us the same number of councillors as the conservatives.</p>
<p>And just to put that in some sort of perspective, the conservatives ran the council until 2019. Things can change very quickly. The conservative nationally have done appallingly, of course, but at a local level the Conservatives chose to make their entire campaign based around opposing efforts to reduce traffic.</p>
<p>Anti-anything, to promote active travel and safer streets. So they put all their eggs in one basket and it didn’t pay off because the trouble with the bubble that Tories seem to live in is that they hear a lot about how it’s really terrible that people are trying to make the city livable without using a car. And actually, as was proven in the last local elections when all of the parties, including the Tories, had dealing with traffic in their manifestos and this election where all the parties except the Tories had it in their manifestos again… and lo and behold, the Tories have lost seven seats.</p>
<p>So they’re down to the same as the Greens, though obviously the Greens are on their way up, Tories on the way down. So that’s kind of interesting. The Lib Dems obviously still have a huge majority and even more huge majority now. Labour are now the official opposition in the council, so interesting times. So yeah, always worth voting in local elections, . The Tories telling people all the way through that it’s them all the lib dems and actually hardly anyone voted Tory really compared to what they expected.</p>
<p>So a good thing.</p>
<p><a href="http://dominictristram.com/2023/05/05/the-results-are-in.html">Local Elections - The Votes Are In!</a> was originally published by at <a href="http://dominictristram.com">Dom Tristram</a> on May 05, 2023.</p>http://dominictristram.com/2023/05/04/vote-today2023-05-04T00:00:00+01:002023-05-04T00:00:00+01:00http://dominictristram.com<p>Many (including me) have local elections today. You should always vote because this is your best chance of a representative you agree with. Here’s why.</p>
<blockquote class="tiktok-embed" cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@dominictristram/video/7229346081207831834" data-video-id="7229346081207831834" style="max-width: 605px;min-width: 325px;"> <section> <a target="_blank" title="@dominictristram" href="https://www.tiktok.com/@dominictristram?refer=embed">@dominictristram</a> <p>Local Elections - Vote Today</p> <a target="_blank" title="♬ original sound Dom Tristram" href="https://www.tiktok.com/?refer=embed">♬ original sound Dom Tristram</a> </section> </blockquote>
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<p>Generated transcript:</p>
<p>So if like me, you have local elections today, then this is the day to go out and vote unless you’ve already used your postal vote. A lot of people think there’s not much point voting. What can a local council do? But actually a local council can do a lot of things, budgets for education and social care, .</p>
<p>They can obviously do things to reduce pollution and reduce, , traffic or pedestrianize areas, all sorts of things that improve your quality of life. It’s worth voting in local elections because this is really the main opportunity. You have to choose a representative who you believe in. Local elections generally have low turnouts, which means that if you are fairly determined, you and some like-minded friends can get a councillor who you agree with.</p>
<p>So you’ll get a lot of stuff from the big parties at general Elections saying only vote for the big parties. What’s the point of voting for a small one? Well, they can’t use that excuse at local elections. I’ll give you an example. I’ve just come back from my polling station it was about 1:00 PM.</p>
<p>And so far today, in the whole day, they’ve had 53 votes. So if you and some like-minded friends, and it doesn’t have to be many, if you decide you’re all gonna vote, you can basically swing that whole result. Now, of course, that number will go up by the end of the day, but not by much. And you’re talking about people winning council seats on four or 500 votes sometimes.</p>
<p>And where I live in Bath and Northeast Somerset we, T he Green Party, have lost out on council seats by as few as seven or eight votes on a few occasions. It’s always worth voting because your vote and the vote to your friends or family can just swing the whole result.</p>
<p>Don’t believe people who tell you the greens can’t win . Don’t believe people who tell you your vote won’t make a difference. Because actually with such small margins, you can go from a ward where a party hasn’t even stood before to that party winning, and that does happen.</p>
<p>You can get these surprise results and it’s because a lot of the time the big parties don’t even bother campaigning in what they consider safe ward. So go and vote. Maybe you’ll cause some surprises. A green councillor will always work in your best interests. So if you really want social and environmental justice, the Green Party isn’t the sort of party where people join because they know they’ll get elected and they can sit there comfortably doing, nothing.</p>
<p>They join because they really want to help, really want to help their communities. So you’ve got a choice today. You can go make an active choice to elect people who really want to help out, really want to make your world better, or you can make a choice for more of the same.</p>
<p>And believe me, not voting is the vote for more of the same. Please don’t do it. Please use your vote.</p>
<p><a href="http://dominictristram.com/2023/05/04/vote-today.html">Local Elections - Vote Today!</a> was originally published by at <a href="http://dominictristram.com">Dom Tristram</a> on May 04, 2023.</p>http://dominictristram.com/2023/02/23/15-minute-cities2023-02-23T00:00:00+00:002023-02-23T00:00:00+00:00http://dominictristram.com<p>Why have the Right suddenly started attacking plans to create cities where people live close to essential services?</p>
<blockquote class="tiktok-embed" cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@dominictristram/video/7203361531470286086" data-video-id="7203361531470286086" style="max-width: 605px;min-width: 325px;"> <section> <a target="_blank" title="@dominictristram" href="https://www.tiktok.com/@dominictristram?refer=embed">@dominictristram</a> <p>15 Minute Cities and Conspiracy Theories</p> <a target="_blank" title="♬ original sound - Dom Tristram" href="https://www.tiktok.com/music/original-sound-7203361583496448773?refer=embed">♬ original sound - Dom Tristram</a> </section> </blockquote>
<script async="" src="https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js"></script>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@dominictristram/video/7203361531470286086">[Watch on TikTok]</a></li>
<li><a href="https://youtu.be/mWp19NZuST8/">[Watch on YouTube]</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Generated transcript:</p>
<p>So on Tuesday evening, 21st of February, , there was a protest outside the Guildhall in Bath against cuts to subsidised bus routes. A lot of Northeast Somerset is fairly remote from Bath, but people need to go in for hospitals and that sort of thing.</p>
<p>And a lot of them depend on the bus service, especially if they don’t have cars. And the council has decided to basically cut all of those, and keep all the ones in Bath itself. Now, within Bath, it’s a small city. You can pretty much walk everywhere. You might not like it, but you can.</p>
<p>Whereas if you live in some of the smaller villages in Northeast Somerset, you can’t. So it’s basically cutting off people’s lifelines. Definitely non drivers. So it’s a valid thing , to protest about, so a protest was organised for that outside the Guild Hall, which coincided with the evening of the full council meeting.</p>
<p>Now, unfortunately, this was slightly hijacked by anti 15 minute City protestors. And that brings me really onto my main point for this video, which is, 15 minute cities and the strange and very sudden campaign by the right to attack them . Now, in case you’re not aware, the 15 Minute City concept basically says that everyone who lives in a city or I guess large town, should have all of the services they need for day-to-day life within 15 minutes of where they live, by walking or cycling.</p>
<p>So , shops, schools, doctor’s surgery, dentist, that sort of thing. Pretty much what life used to be like, now this is, , brought some very odd people outta the woodwork. Looking at some of the protestors on Tuesday. You saw people with very much coordinated placards saying something like democracy now, it’s some sort of coordinated anti 15 minute movement and it’s suddenly been whipped up by the sort of people who went on anti-vax protests and, rather than anything rational.</p>
<p>It’s about some imagined kind of ‘locking them down’ in to where they’d live somehow. And then that’s mixed with a healthy dose of antisemitism. Bear in mind anything about George Soros is basically antisemitism. They’re just saying Jews, it’s another word for Jews.</p>
<p>It’s the usual kind of hard right conspiracy theory nonsense that we’re getting more and more in everyday life now. And I guess it has always been bubbling under the surface, but the difference now is there’s actually been Tory MPs standing up in parliament saying the same sort of stuff, that this is some sort of great conspiracy to get people to, I don’t know, what - stay at home?</p>
<p>I dunno, who would benefit from that conspiracy of giving you shops and schools close to where you live, but apparently it’s communists or something. And then there’s all sorts of other things woven into it, like s ome sort of United Nations programme?. The more you dig into conspiracy theories and the madness around them, the more you just can’t really believe that anyone with any kind of sense of logic or intelligence could ever fall for them. It’s like the anti-vaxxers. You might have valid reasons to be concerned about any medicine. Of course you might. But when people start talking about Bill Gates putting microchips in vaccines, it’s so immediately obviously rubbish that you’re amazed that so many people somehow buy into it and it’s no surprise that you see anti-vaxxers are now largely the same people protesting against 15 minute cities - protesting against something that entirely and utterly is meant to help them and improve their lives, and they somehow think that’s some sort of attack on them. I’ve said to them, what don’t you like about the, , ability to live somewhere where you can access services?</p>
<p>And I’ve had one guy say to me, “I prefer driving. I like my car. I don’t want things to be close to where I live”. And when you’re dealing with that kind of logic,</p>
<p>It’s gone beyond debate. People say to you, oh, you shouldn’t dismiss people with these concerns you should listen to their viewpoints. But at what point do we say as a society and certainly as someone in politics, it’s not something I want to listen to because it’s so clearly nonsense.</p>
<p>Why should I waste my time? Talking to somebody who thinks George Soros wants you not to drive to the shops, why? Why? Why is that something that I should even contemplate debating as if it’s a valid viewpoint and when you’ve got Tory mps. And I have to say, it’s not just mps, but the local Conservatives in Bath are happy to go to these protests like them on social media, spread them, encourage them.</p>
<p>I don’t believe the local Tories believe this for one second. But again, they’re weaponizing people who are easily led. They’re weaponizing conspiracy theories, just like Trump did. Of course, Trump didn’t believe that Hillary Clinton was running a paedophile ring from Pizza Express or whatever it was.</p>
<p>Trump might be a bit of a fool, but he’s not. Entirely a fool. He’s calculating and he knows how to run an army of fools for his benefit. And it’s the same here. Local Tories want you to forget what they do as a party and what they do nationally as a party, , they try and distance themselves locally.</p>
<p>But ultimately when everything is going so wrong, it suits them. Instead of people being on the street saying, “why is it taking eight hours for an ambulance to arrive?” If there’s people on the streets instead saying, “we don’t want this thing that will help us. And here’s this mad conspiracy theory” . If they’re on the street, saying that they’re not actually protesting about something that Tories have done.</p>
<p><a href="http://dominictristram.com/2023/02/23/15-minute-cities.html">15 Minute Cities and Conspiracy Theories</a> was originally published by at <a href="http://dominictristram.com">Dom Tristram</a> on February 23, 2023.</p>http://dominictristram.com/2022/12/15/asylum-seeker-drownings2022-12-15T00:00:00+00:002022-12-15T00:00:00+00:00http://dominictristram.com<p>I don’t want to hear false sympathy from this government - I want them to accept responsibility.</p>
<ul>
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<li><a href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/CmLy4b6MsGh/">[Watch in Instagram]</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Generated transcript:</p>
<p>Hey, how you doing? It’s minus six out here today, so I’m gonna keep this brief, but I just wanted to say that if you don’t enable asylum seekers who have a legal right to claim asylum in this country, if you don’t give them a safe passage, so they’re forced to do things like use people’s smugglers and get in the back of lorries and cross the Channel in small boats, then you can’t really claim any kind of sadness when they drown in the Channel because it’s your fault. I want to be absolutely clear here. The blood of these asylum seekers is on the hands of this government and less directly everyone who campaigns for this government and everyone who campaigns for that party. This is the result of your hard right rhetoric, literal death because you are scared of the hard right thinking you’re soft.</p>
<p>Live with it. Own it. Those people’s lives and their loss of life is down to you.</p>
<p><a href="http://dominictristram.com/2022/12/15/asylum-seeker-drownings.html">Asylum Seeker Drownings And Who Is To Blame</a> was originally published by at <a href="http://dominictristram.com">Dom Tristram</a> on December 15, 2022.</p>http://dominictristram.com/2022/11/21/cop27-bath-time2022-11-21T00:00:00+00:002022-11-21T00:00:00+00:00http://dominictristram.com<p>I was on the Bath University campus recently to talk to Sophie Main of ‘Bath Time’, the university magazine,
about COP27 and what it means for Bath and beyond.</p>
<p><img src="../../../assets/img/articles/2022-11-bath-time.jpeg" /></p>
<p>It was great to chat to Sophie and an interesting discussion. <a href="https://unibathtime.co.uk/2022/11/21/round-up-of-cop27-with-dominic-tristram/">
You can read the resulting article here</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://dominictristram.com/2022/11/21/cop27-bath-time.html">Interview With 'Bath Time' Magazine on COP27</a> was originally published by at <a href="http://dominictristram.com">Dom Tristram</a> on November 21, 2022.</p>http://dominictristram.com/2022/10/31/kent-attack2022-10-31T00:00:00+00:002022-10-31T00:00:00+00:00http://dominictristram.com<p>An asylum detention centre has been attacked by right-wing terrorists. Where is the
outrage?</p>
<ul>
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<li><a href="https://youtu.be/_aqtd0zKYaw">[Watch on YouTube]</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Generated transcript:</p>
<p>Can we talk about the fact that on Sunday a far right suicide bomber attacked a refugee
detention center in Dover?</p>
<p>He’s dead obviously, being a suicide bomber, thankfully he didn’t manage to kill anyone else,
but he threw some petrol bombs at the detention centre. Why would somebody do that? It’s
because of our government’s rhetoric around refugees, migrants, people come to this country
for safety or any other reason at this point.</p>
<p>Remember, in this center we don’t know who they are, as genuine refugees in there escaping
war and persecution, and there’s anyone else who’s come to this country basically, who
isn’t wealthy enough to have a passport or privileged enough, and they’re in this center
in terrible conditions, much maligned by the press, and now there’s far right terrorists
attacking them.</p>
<p>Now whose fault is this? Now they’re going to blame mental illness, I’m sure, for this
attack. But it’s terrorism. Of course it’s terrorism. If they were brown, they’d have been
classed as a terrorist instantly. Anyone who tries to kill anyone else and kills themselves
in the process who is brown is a terrorist, aren’t they? So says the media.</p>
<p>But note how this one isn’t being talked about in the same way, and the government, in
their wisdom, are hardly mentioning it at all, because their rhetoric, and that of the
right wing press, has caused this. Never forget that.</p>
<p><a href="http://dominictristram.com/2022/10/31/kent-attack.html">Far Right Terrorist Attack on Kent Refugee Detention Centre</a> was originally published by at <a href="http://dominictristram.com">Dom Tristram</a> on October 31, 2022.</p>http://dominictristram.com/2022/10/11/despising-tories2022-10-11T00:00:00+01:002022-10-11T00:00:00+01:00http://dominictristram.com<p>Nicola Sturgeon is in trouble for saying she despises what Tories stand for. But that
viewpoint is entirely valid.</p>
<ul>
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</ul>
<p>Generated transcript:</p>
<p>Now you’ve probably seen recently that Nicola Sturgeon has caused a bit
of a fuss in some circles by saying that she detests the Tories.
She later clarified that she detests the party and everything they
stand for rather than individual Tories, which is clearly
what she meant in the first place.</p>
<p>This has
upset quite a few people. The ask how one could you say such a thing? It’s
unprofessional. You should never let people’s politics get in the way of
how you feel about them. The language is uncalled for and all that sort
of stuff. But it’s not exactly a controversial viewpoint when I say
good on her, because actually if somebody holds those views and makes it their business
to enforce those views on the people, it’s justified. For example the Conservatives
today have blocked some of the very
few good things that Michael Gove pushed for when he was in a position
of power in their party. So they’re getting rid of the ban on no fault evictions
and lots of protections that were going to be
bought in for renters.</p>
<p>Now, it’s pretty rare that the Tories do something for people who don’t have as much and
have fewer advantages in
life. So for the Tories to then shelve those few things (which were
manifesto commitments, let’s remember) is appalling. So there’s a PM with no
mandate doing things with no mandate and getting rid of the things they
actually were voted in to do by some people, eg actually had a mandate for.</p>
<p>I mean, that’s pretty detestable, isn’t it? It makes a mockery of
democracy for one thing. But there’s no reason to stop a
ban on no fault evictions other than potentially pressure from landlords
and people with money.</p>
<p>It’s taking something that some of the cherished ‘red wall’ voters that they have who got
them into power. That’s the sort
of policy that would appeal to them. And so some of them voted Conservative
and now we see that all of the things that could
have conceivably helped people with less money have all been stripped
out.</p>
<p>And now it’s all become about helping people with money. Even long term
voters are beginning to realize that this is a party that’s been taken
over by the hard right. There’s no ‘One Nation Conservatives’ left in a
position of responsibility in the party.</p>
<p>The Tory party of old that could have commanded respect (in some ways) from me and
people like me is gone. It’s all about enriching the already rich, and
it is despicable. It’s a body where if people actively support it at this point
they’re worthy of contempt and they’re worthy of criticism because they are
basically trying to make other people’s lives worse, and it’s all just
for them. If it doesn’t make a profit then these people don’t count, and that’s
not a viewpoint that is worthy of respect.</p>
<p><a href="http://dominictristram.com/2022/10/11/despising-tories.html">On Despising What Tories Stand For</a> was originally published by at <a href="http://dominictristram.com">Dom Tristram</a> on October 11, 2022.</p>http://dominictristram.com/2022/10/10/solar-farms2022-10-10T00:00:00+01:002022-10-10T00:00:00+01:00http://dominictristram.com<p>As the Tories announce a ban on new solar farms on agricultural land, we need to wonder
why.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/dom-tristrams-soapbox/id1377617516">[Listen on Apple Podcasts]</a></li>
<li><a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/1bFtKvUOvyLyawtE0TtHad?si=73e50970a285440b">[Watch/listen on Spotify]</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@dominictristram/video/7152920725769161989">[Watch on TikTok]</a></li>
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<li><a href="https://youtu.be/LulAbd_A-A8">[Watch on YouTube]</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Transcript:</p>
<p>Well here we are in a lovely sunny day in October and the sun has
rather reminded me of a story I heard today or yesterday that the
government is seeking to ban solar farms on farmland or installing
solar panels on farmland, with the excuse being that we should be
prioritizing food production now.</p>
<p>There’s a couple of things about this. One is that at the same time they’re pushing to
reopen and licence more North sea oil and gas exploration. Stopping solar
and trying to encourage gas in a time of climate emergency is pretty stupid. But that aside,
you have to remember why solar farms are appearing on farmland. There’s two things. One, you can
actually farm underneath them. If you have certain crops or maybe
poultry and other livestock, you can put them under soda panels. That’s
fine. You can have dual use in a lot of these fields, so it’s absolutely
efficient as a way of using the space.</p>
<p>That’s the first thing. So it’s not wasting space that for agriculture,
it’s getting extra use out of space that would’ve had less use, and that’s an important
point. Another thing is why farmers are leasing their land, or sometimes doing this
themselves, for solar?</p>
<p>Well, it’s because they can’t make the money on the agriculture because
food is undervalued. Even though food prices are going up, they still
don’t get paid enough to cover the cost of production, or the
land is generally not suitable for the sort of agriculture that would
make the money. So why not, they think, make some money from renewables
and let’s face it, the country could do with the energy.</p>
<p>So why is the government saying that
they can’t do that? Well, from broad perspective, placing solar panels
on agricultural land doesn’t make sense. We should be putting them on
land that’s otherwise used for buildings, for example, on roofs.</p>
<p>That would be the most sensible place to put them. But the government’s
not doing that, is it? It’s not mandating solar panels on roofs for new
buildings or existing buildings. It’s largely ignoring the fact
that we’ve got all this space we could be generating energy from, and
it’s up to private individuals whether they do or not, and of course of
there is a cost to that.</p>
<p>But the government is not encouraging anyone to do it. In fact,
it’s discouraging people from doing it by scrapping FIT payments. So
farmers are choosing to do this because they’re not getting the money from the
agriculture that they could be running on that land. The main reason
they’re not getting the money is because of Brexit.</p>
<p>It’s now much
harder for people to make money to cover the cost of production from farming
because of the friction that has been introduced into selling our goods
to our main customer, which is obviously also our closest customer, the EU - both Ireland
and the rest of Europe. That’s now much
harder, much more costly for farmers to do. What were already pretty tight margins are
much tighter, so a lot of farmers have either decided to stop producing certain products,
or in fact not be farmers at all any more, and others are
diversifying. Now, whether that’s camp sites or solar farms or anything
else like that, these are all way farmers can make money from their land
when the land is not paying for itself with agriculture.</p>
<p>Now we’ve seen also
at the same time, if you remember, the government rolled back on their
commitment to pay farmers for stewardship when Brexit happened. There
was talk of ending subsidies for just growing loads of food we don’t
need and pay farmers for looking after land. While you may not have noticed, that’s all
been rolled back, There was
some optimistic talk about it, and lots of farmers even applied for some
of these grants, but they’ve all been shelled for the indefinite future.
So what are farmers going to do? You tell them they can’t set up solar
farms, they’re going to have to do something else.</p>
<p>What? What could that something else be? I can tell you what it wouldn’t
be - it wouldn’t be as useful for getting us out of the energy crisis
because ultimately we need more renewable generation in this country.
And if farmers are the people willing to allow their land to do it, and
the consumers with roofs and the money to buy panels aren’t doing it,
let the farmers do it and get us out of a hole. By stopping them you’re just going to
increase reliance on gas and increase energy prices, which isn’t going to help anyone.</p>
<p><a href="http://dominictristram.com/2022/10/10/solar-farms.html">Ban On Solar On Agricultural Land</a> was originally published by at <a href="http://dominictristram.com">Dom Tristram</a> on October 10, 2022.</p>http://dominictristram.com/2022/10/03/spending-cuts2022-10-03T00:00:00+01:002022-10-03T00:00:00+01:00http://dominictristram.com<p>As the Tories announce another £18bn in spending cuts, I look at their continuing war on
everyone except the super-rich, and how this doesn’t just hurt the poorest.</p>
<ul>
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</ul>
<p>Transcript:</p>
<p>Well, I can’t really tell you how angry I am right now. Today we’ve had
the news that the Chancellor has rolled back his 45p income tax band
scrapping. That’s not a victory. I mean, it’s a sort of victory, but in
the overall scheme of what’s happening it almost doesn’t matter. The
costs to the country of bailing out the markets and buying government
bonds and stuff after the disastrous mini budget the other day is 65
billion pounds, 65 billion pounds that obviously we are all going to pay
for in one way or another.</p>
<p>And that’s ignoring the upcoming cost of living crisis, or in fact
ongoing. But it’s going to get worse. Well, what’s really infuriated me
today is that they’ve just announced 18 billion in public sector cuts.
Now these are real terms cuts because what they’re doing is basically
not changing any funding based on the massively higher than expected
rate of inflation.</p>
<p>So what that means is hospitals and schools and all these other things
we all need - not just that, but every public service. Everything that
the government does for us and for anyone else, it’s all going to have the
same money that it would’ve got if inflation stuck at a rational sort of
sensible amount, which wasn’t enough in the first place as anyone who
has to wait 10 hours for an ambulance can tell you, or anyone who has to
wait weeks to see a GP or anything, any kind of public service and even
just dealing with, getting your driving license or your passport or
anything else. All of these things are public services. They don’t just
affect the poor. We’re not talking about benefits here. Not that
attacking benefits is a good thing in any way, but these affect
everyone, rich or poor.</p>
<p>Public services are vital for everyone. Now, of course, if you are very,
very rich, you can get your way around them. With private healthcare or
private schooling or whatever, but they’ll affect everyone else. And 18
billion so far has a cut. So what’s that mean? That means that schools
that can’t really afford to get TAs or extra teachers or refurbished
leaking classrooms will have even less money to do those things.</p>
<p>The obvious conclusion to that is that they’re going to have to sack
people, hospitals who can’t afford to get bank staff into do operations
or run clinics. What are they going to do? The obvious answer is they’re
going to treat fewer people but they’re going to have to get that money
somehow.</p>
<p>This isn’t money that is spare. This is money that’s not there right
now. Public services have been crumbling for 10 years and this isn’t
just rhetoric. I mean, we’ve gone from, as I’ve said in a previous
recording, we’ve gone from a point in 2010 where the NHS was reaching
the lowest waiting times in its history.</p>
<p>Satisfaction was all time high. People forget that was just before the
Tories got. What’s changed since then? Yes, it’s been coronavirus, but
not till 10 years after the toys got in and the services have been
degrading all that time. And what’s going to happen now, Now they’ve got
even less money. This is a massive real terms cut and there’s no plans
to change that a government’s so insistent on doubling down.</p>
<p>It’s a gender for just transferring wealth from all of us. To the super
rich. It’s not going to change. It changed the 45 P tax rate because even
the people who benefited from that cut actually said it’s ridiculous. So
yeah, that was a relatively cost free, although made them look
ridiculous. Cost free thing for the toys to do.</p>
<p>But this, this, don’t ever think this is anything except the war against
ordinary people. Not just the poor, ordinary people, poor middle class,
, people who might consider that. They’ve done quite. We’re all going to
pay and all of this money is going to go to the super rich it’s gotta end
because this is literally going to kill people. People not going to
hospital or their doctors in time. It’s already killing people. It’s
going get worse. People who don’t get the care they need, when they have
issues, psychological issues or mental health issues, is going to get
worse.</p>
<p>Schools are going to get worse. There’ll be larger class sizes. There even
fewer teachers. It’s just going to be an absolute nightmare. And as sooner
these disaster capitalists are booted out, the better.</p>
<p><a href="http://dominictristram.com/2022/10/03/spending-cuts.html">£18bn Spending Cut Announced</a> was originally published by at <a href="http://dominictristram.com">Dom Tristram</a> on October 03, 2022.</p>http://dominictristram.com/2022/08/23/site-update2022-08-23T00:00:00+01:002022-08-23T00:00:00+01:00http://dominictristram.com<p>As you might have noticed, I have updated this Web site. There was a bunch of stuff that I wanted to do:</p>
<ul>
<li>make everything faster and less fussy</li>
<li>move to a newer static site template (I use Jekyll, now with the <a href="https://beautifuljekyll.com">Beautiful Jekyll theme</a>) that is maintained</li>
<li>update a bunch of info</li>
<li>include stuff about my music and tech activities</li>
</ul>
<p>Hopefully everything is easier to find now. Let me know if it’s more confusing!</p>
<p><a href="http://dominictristram.com/2022/08/23/site-update.html">Web site update</a> was originally published by at <a href="http://dominictristram.com">Dom Tristram</a> on August 23, 2022.</p>http://dominictristram.com/2019/12/11/voting-guide2019-12-11T00:00:00-00:002019-12-11T00:00:00+00:00http://dominictristram.com<p>As you may have noticed, there is an election tomorrow. Now more than ever there is a large amount of conflicting advice offered to people who are wondering who to vote for. I wanted to write a brief guide to help them to think this through.</p>
<p>This guide is entirely impartial. I’m not going to suggest who you vote for or encourage you to vote one way or the other. My goal here is simply to try and increase engagement and encourage people to think in a structured way about their vote. The more confident you are that you have voted in the best way you could, the better you will feel. Believe me, it’s true!</p>
<p>I’m going to explain how, whatever your beliefs and what you want politics to be like, no vote is ‘wasted’, as long as you vote with clear objectives.</p>
<p>OK, let’s go.</p>
<h2 id="step-1---what-do-you-really-believe">Step 1 - What do you really believe?</h2>
<p>The first thing to do is clear your mind of anything to do with political parties. Try to ignore any preconceptions. Forget
about your MP, the leaders of the parties, how you have voted before, or anything else. Why? Because we need to identify
your core values. This is the essential first step for casting your vote.</p>
<p>Take a few minutes to consider things that are important to you that a government can change. It doesn’t matter what they
are - just jot them down in the order that they occur to you. Your list could include education, healthcare, defence.
Don’t think about it to0 much, just write them down as they pop into your head.</p>
<p>Congratulations! Your list is more or less automatically in the order of importance to you. Don’t question it too much
at this point, because the more you question it the more existing biases come in.</p>
<p>Now, starting at the top of the list, think of any of your ‘deal breakers’ in that area. These are things on which you
absolutely will not compromise. Not everyone has these, but if you do it’s important to note them down to remind
yourself of them later. Examples might be that you will not vote for climate change deniers, renationalisation, NHS privatisaion,
nuclear weapons… it’s up to you - big moral certainties with no blurred edges.</p>
<p>That’s it - well done! You’ve got your own very basic priority list. That’s all you need.</p>
<h2 id="step-2---examine-policies-without-bias">Step 2 - Examine policies without bias</h2>
<p>When you read a manifesto it’s almost impossible not to go into it with either a positive or a negative bias,
depending on your existing impression of the party or the people in it. This is not good for sound reasoning. What
is required is a way to see the policies without seeing who wrote them and choose the one you prefer, then see
which manifesto has the most policies you agree with. Thankfully that tool exists.</p>
<p>Using a Web browser go to <a href="voteforpolicies.org.uk">Vote For Policies</a>. This is a neutral site which does just
that - it allows you to see corresponding policies from all of the parties without seeing which party they are from.
You don’t have to enter your name or any identifying information, just your postcode at the end if you want to see
how other people in your constituency have chosen.</p>
<p>Go to the site and fill-in as much as you can. When you start it will ask which areas are important to you. Make
sure you select as many of the items from your list in step 1 as you can, and ideally more. The more you choose
the longer the quiz will take, but the more accurate the answer will be.</p>
<p>Make sure you are honest with yourself and rule-out any policies which are deal-breakers you identified in step 1.</p>
<p>When you have completed the quiz the site will give you a result in the form of a pie chart. This illustrates a
percentage showing how many of your results corresponded to each party. The party with the largest percentage is
the one you agree with most.</p>
<p>The result may not surprise you, or it might. Whatever the case, it is an undeniable, unbiased illustration of
which party represents your views most closely.</p>
<p>So, who should you vote for? Let’s see.</p>
<h2 id="step-3---who-can-you-actually-vote-for">Step 3 - Who can you actually vote for?</h2>
<p>Now that you know who you agree with most you must find out if they standing in your constituency. If you are not sure
simply go to <a href="whocanivotefor.co.uk">Who Can I Vote For?</a> and type in your postcode.</p>
<p>At this point you will also see any independent candidates who are standing. It’s impossible for these to appear on the
Vote For Policies site, so now is the time to consider if they are more closely aligned to your views than the party
identified in step 2. It’s not always easy to do this - the best way is to either go to a hustings or contact them directly.</p>
<p>Note down the name of your constituency if you didn’t know it as you will need it later. It might not be what you expect,
such as the name of your town.</p>
<p>If your chosen party isn’t standing and there are no independents (or you don’t agree with them), you can substitute the
party that next most closely aligned to your views in step 2.</p>
<h2 id="step-4---who-should-you-vote-for">Step 4 - Who should you vote for?</h2>
<p>For some people this is the tricky part, and it’s all down to our unfair electoral system. ‘first past the post’. This
means that the makeup of parliament does not reflect the number of votes cast nationally. The result of this is
unexpected situations like a majority government being elected with under 40% of the vote, and some MPs being elected
on just over 6,000 votes while others receive over 47,000.</p>
<p>I consider it vital for democracy that we have electoral reform in the UK. I’m not going to discuss that further at
this point, but in the vast majority of democracies the ‘who should I vote for’ discussion would end at this point
because the number of MPs elected reflects the national vote, so you only have to consider who you like best. It
shames us that it isn’t the case here. Join an organisation that campaigns for electoral reform, such as
<a href="https://www.makevotesmatter.org.uk">Make Votes Matter</a>, and help to ensure you can vote for what you believe in at
future elections. If your favourite party doesn’t support electoral reform (they all do expect the largest two), work
hard to change their minds.</p>
<p>Anyway, it is absolutely a valid decision to ignore the unfair electoral system and vote for the party you believe in
most, regardless of quirks in the electoral system. In many ways that is the most democratic action and the one that
is truest to yourself. However, you should consider the effects of first past the post.</p>
<h3 id="what-are-marginals-and-safe-seats">What are ‘marginals’ and ‘safe seats’?</h3>
<p>Some constituencies are referred to as ‘marginals’. These are seats where the winner has a majority of fewer than
3,000 votes. You have probably noticed if you live in one of these as you will have a lot more leaflets and perhaps
people knocking on your door than people you know in constituencies that are ‘safe’.</p>
<p>Marginal constituencies are the ones that are likely to elect an MP from a different party than last time. The opposite
is a ‘safe’ seat, where it is very unlikely that an MP from a different party will be elected. If you live in a safe
seat it’s possible that you will receive hardly any election material at all.</p>
<p>Find out what type of constituency yours is by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2017_United_Kingdom_general_election">finding it in this list</a>.
This will list a large amount of information for each entry, including the majority of the winning party last time.
Remember, if the majority is under 3,000 you are definitely in a marginal. The higher it is over that, the safer it is.
Of course, things can change. Have a look at the polls as close as you can to polling day and work out how that national
swing would effect your constituency. If you live in even a moderately safe seat then it probably won’t, by itself.</p>
<p>Next consider local factors. This time around (2019) there are many constituencies where one party standing in 2017
has stood aside, so that immediately ‘frees up’ those votes. In other constituencies there are local factors such as
scandals hitting a party, or a particularly strong campaign that might change. It may be impossible to judge how this
might change how people vote. It might not at all. You must use your best judgement to assess this and whether it
realistically results in change given majority of the party who won last time.</p>
<p>Remember, it’s always true that most seats are safe seats.</p>
<h3 id="what-is-tactical-voting">What is ‘tactical voting’?</h3>
<p>This is when you choose not to vote for the party you like best based on the fact that a party you really dislike might
win, and by voting for a party that isn’t your favourite, they might not. It’s a compromise. The more marginal the
constituency is, the stronger the argument for tactical voting.</p>
<p>Some of the larger parties will try to tell you that you should always vote tactically. This is wrong. In a safe seat
there is no such thing as a tactical vote, and that’s more true the safer the seat is.</p>
<p>There is also no such thing as tactical voting in a constituency where it’s not clear who the two largest parties will be.</p>
<p>As an illustration, take a <a href="http://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/defence/conservative#UKParliament">look at this list of Conservative-held seats</a>. These are in order of the swing needed to beat
the sitting Conservative. As you can
see, where the seat is a marginal it can be won from the Conservatives with a swing of 4% or less. The swing needed then
goes up a lot as the majority increases.</p>
<p>The national swing is nearly always lower than people think. The largest ever swing from Conservative to Labour was 10.2%,
and the largest ever from Labour to Conservative was 5.3%. These are all-time records - national swings are usually much
lower.</p>
<p>You can see the <a href="http://www.electionpolling.co.uk/polls/general-election">current predicted swings here</a>. At the time of writing, the day before the election, the Conservatives
are down 0.3% and Labour are down nearly 8%.</p>
<p>So now you have as good an idea as anyone else how likely your constituency is to vote for an MP for a different party
this time. You will be in one of two categories, one of which is much more clear cut than the other.</p>
<h3 id="should-you-vote-tactically-in-a-safe-seat">Should you vote ‘tactically’ in a safe seat?</h3>
<p>If you are in a safe seat you should go ahead and vote for the party you identified as the one you agree with most.
Your vote won’t change who is elected and won’t change who is in government.</p>
<p>If that’s the party that won last time, great - lucky you! If it’s not the party who won last time you should definitely
still vote for them.</p>
<p>If your chosen party is not standing in the safe seat, consider chosing the ‘next best fit’ party from step 2 as long
as it supports
electoral reform. Chosing the one of the big two parties, which reject reform, is a vote for more elections where you can’t
vote for what you really want.</p>
<p>If your chosen party is standing but not the one that won last time, you should definitely still vote for them. You might wonder what
the point is if they won’t win, but there’s always a point. More than one, in fact:</p>
<ul>
<li>You will help your party keep its deposit. Parties have to pay £500 to stand, and this is a large amount of money for smaller parties. They get this deposit back if they get at least 5% of the vote. Your vote can help them to get that money back and spend it on things like local elections. Parties that struggle to win in general elections often have many hundreds of councillors, so that money can be used to get councillors of the party you like best onto your local council</li>
<li>Media companies cover parties more when their national vote share increases. Since parties struggle to break through without media coverage, your vote will help your party become a serious contender in the future. This is in your interests since they most closely represent your views</li>
<li>You will help the MPs elected elsewhere in your chosen party. There is state funding for political parties called ‘Short Money’. All opposition parties with MPs receive funding based on the number of votes nationally, whether they win in that constituency or not. For every 200 votes they receive an extra £33. In smaller parties without much money this makes a huge difference. For example, the Green Party currently have one MP, but the national vote share results in Short Money that pays for parliamentary researchers who can help her find the data she needs to hold the government to account. By voting for your party, even if you are told they are a ‘wasted vote’, you are helping their MPs elected elsewhere speak up for what you believe in Parliament. This is vital.</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="should-you-vote-tactically-in-a-marginal-seat">Should you vote ‘tactically’ in a marginal seat?</h3>
<p>This is a personal decision. Its easier if you don’t really mind the two parties most likely to win in your constituency -
let them fight it out and vote for the party you like best anyway, for the reasons in the list above.</p>
<p>If you strongly oppose one of the two parties most likely to win then you have a tougher choice. The more marginal your
constituency is, the more you may feel you have to vote for one of the two to ‘keep the other out’. This in understandable
and I’m not going to try to persuade you otherwise. All I would suggest is that you make yourself feel better about
this compromise, and help the party that you really wanted to vote for, by ‘vote swapping’.</p>
<p>To vote swap, go to <a href="https://www.swapmyvote.uk">Swap My Vote</a> and enter the party you want and the one you are willing
to vote for tactically. You will be matched-up with someone willing to vote the other way. In this way you can help stop
the party you dislike winning your constituency while at the same time helping your chosen party gain national vote
share, or perhaps even win in a different constituency. It doesn’t feel as good as voting for who you like best, but if
you feel you have to vote tactically it’s the next best thing.</p>
<h2 id="whatever-you-do---go-and-vote">Whatever you do - go and vote!</h2>
<p>Do vote. It’s important. But equally importantly, don’t let anyone try to bully or convince you to vote for someone you
don’t want to vote for. You have the tools you need to find out if you really do agree with a party. You have the
information here to know if a ‘tactical’ vote makes sense. The only wasted vote is one that you haven’t considered,
is one blindly made on the advice of people whose agenda may be different to yours, or one you simply don’t believe in.</p>
<p>I hope this guide has been helpful to everyone. We all have our biases but I have been careful to make it politically
neutral, so it should help you however you vote.</p>
<p>Please do contact me with any suggestions for changes!</p>
<p><a href="http://dominictristram.com/2019/12/11/voting-guide.html">Impartial Voting Guide, 2019 Edition</a> was originally published by at <a href="http://dominictristram.com">Dom Tristram</a> on December 11, 2019.</p>http://dominictristram.com/2019/09/24/dangerous-school-crossing-bath-chronicle2019-09-24T00:00:00-00:002019-09-24T00:00:00+01:00http://dominictristram.com<p><img src="https://i2-prod.somersetlive.co.uk/incoming/article3355367.ece/ALTERNATES/s810/1_Untitled-design-13_censored.jpg" /></p>
<p>I have been <a href="https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/somerset-news/horrified-parent-says-bad-parking-3354037">
featured in an article in the local newspaper</a>, the Bath Chronicle, where I complain about
the zebra crossing I have to use four times a day. I wanted to highlight how dangerous it is for people
to park illegally close to these crossings.</p>
<p><a href="http://dominictristram.com/2019/09/24/dangerous-school-crossing-bath-chronicle.html">Dangerous School Crossing - Bath Chronicle</a> was originally published by at <a href="http://dominictristram.com">Dom Tristram</a> on September 24, 2019.</p>http://dominictristram.com/2019/09/20/youth-strike-for-climate2019-09-20T00:00:00-00:002019-09-20T00:00:00+01:00http://dominictristram.com<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wnoWF3bbuog" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<p><a href="http://dominictristram.com/2019/09/20/youth-strike-for-climate.html">Youth Strike For Climate</a> was originally published by at <a href="http://dominictristram.com">Dom Tristram</a> on September 20, 2019.</p>http://dominictristram.com/2018/10/22/bath-studio-school2018-10-22T00:00:00-00:002018-10-22T00:00:00+01:00http://dominictristram.com<center><img src="http://www.bathnes.gov.uk/sites/default/files/styles/lvl2_service_image/public/bathstudioschool-resized.jpg?itok=SYMrGSG5" />
</center>
<p>It was with disappointment that I heard the sadly expected news that the Bath Studio School faces closure. As people may know,
this is yet another closure of a secondary school in Odd Down, forcing many local children to travel miles across the city
just to get to school even though there are perfectly good school buildings where they live.</p>
<p>I have been impressed by the level of interest the school has shown both to the development of its children and to the
wider Odd Down community. It has been a pleasure to have been interviewed by the children a number of times and to have
faced some really good questions in the many hustings they have run. Few schools have shown such consistent interest
in engaging their children with the world.</p>
<p>Unfortunately there is little or nothing the council can do about the closure. It’s interesting to see our MP and
so many local councillors, especially from the Lib Dems, make a fuss. The three largest parties have spent years removing
responsibility for our schools from councils and handing it to ‘academy chains’ and ‘free schools’, with no democratic
control and bosses who syphon-off funds to award themselves huge pay packets. This is the result - the people have no
voice when schools close. Complaints from the three big parties when these closures happen are either dishonest public
displays or show that they are ignorant of the effect of their own policies.</p>
<p>The law makes it difficult and no other party wants to do it, but it is still actually possible to start LEA
(council run) schools. I will work with my Green Party colleagues to do this on the BCA site and, if the studio school
site ceases to be used as a school, reopen it as an LEA school. I’m interested in hearing from residents who would
like to support this campaign.</p>
<p>In the meantime I will do what I can to keep it open. Yesterday I wrote to Damien Hinds, the Secretary of State
for Education, to ask him to intervene and stop the school closing. If fellow Odd Down residents or other concerned
people in Bath would like to add anything to my further letters to him on this then please let me know.</p>
<p>Dominic Tristram
Green Party PPC for Bath and Odd Down campaigner</p>
<p><a href="http://dominictristram.com/2018/10/22/bath-studio-school.html">Bath Studio School Closure Announced</a> was originally published by at <a href="http://dominictristram.com">Dom Tristram</a> on October 22, 2018.</p>http://dominictristram.com/2018/06/04/clean-air-in-banes-bbc-report2018-06-04T00:00:00-00:002018-06-04T00:00:00+01:00http://dominictristram.com<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gzPwc8jLFq8" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<p><a href="http://dominictristram.com/2018/06/04/clean-air-in-banes-bbc-report.html">Clean Air in BaNES - Working Together to solve the problem (BBC TV)</a> was originally published by at <a href="http://dominictristram.com">Dom Tristram</a> on June 04, 2018.</p>http://dominictristram.com/2018/04/09/whogivesacrap2018-04-09T00:00:00-00:002018-04-09T00:00:00+01:00http://dominictristram.com<center><img src="https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1502/3454/products/6-Buy_multiple_boxes_and_save_large.png?v=1517933558" />
</center>
<p>A number of people who like to do the right thing by the environment seem to be buying
<a href="https://uk.whogivesacrap.org">‘Who Gives A Crap’
toilet paper</a>. This is recycled and they give 50% of their profits to help build toilets in places that
need them.</p>
<p>Good on you all - it’s commendable. However.</p>
<p>‘Who Gives A Crap’ product is wrapped in paper, not plastic. But it is made in China. The oil burned to
get it to you could have made a lot more plastic and (obviously) is bad for the climate, so that’s not
a great win.</p>
<p>Might I suggest <a href="https://www.naturalcollection.com/…/ecoleaf-toilet-tissue-…/">something like this?</a>
Made in the UK from UK waste, the carbon saved by not shipping it from China is huge, and let’s not even begin
on the fact that we ship some paper to China to recycle in the first place and could be shipping it there
and back again! It will also help keep up prices for UK paper recycling, helping councils recoup more money
from what you put out in your recycling box, encouraging recycling and helping to fund your local services.</p>
<p>It’s wrapped in plastic, but this can be recycled along with carrier bags in almost all large supermarkets.
Ecoleaf do some starch-based wraps too (I have kitchen roll from them that uses it), so maybe you can find
toilet roll in compostable wrap too?</p>
<p>Does it help fund building toilets? No, but at £26.74 for 62 rolls (just over 43p a roll) you’re saving 32p
a roll. You can send that all to Water Aid. I don’t know how much profit Who Gives A Crap make per roll
(and therefore what half of that is), but I’d guess that directly funding Water Aid would mean far more
money will be going to building toilets.</p>
<p><a href="http://dominictristram.com/2018/04/09/whogivesacrap.html">Ethical Toilet Paper... or not?</a> was originally published by at <a href="http://dominictristram.com">Dom Tristram</a> on April 09, 2018.</p>